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XirallicBolts

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If somebody wants your car, they're getting your car. Nobody's hacking the mainframe to bypass 7 proxies to wirelessly microwave the canbus to regex your vin into a valid unlock signal.

They'll use dollies and straps to drag your car onto a flatbed.
 
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XirallicBolts

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Maybe I'm jaded, but I'm skeptical of any news articles. The entire news industry makes their money by intentionally bending facts and taking things out of context to scare / anger people, because that means higher reader engagement.

Yes, under the right circumstances, people could gain remote access to certain functions of certain cars. Over on another forum, people have been trying to find ways to make their own version of the FordPass app to lock/unlock/start because Ford's genuine app is a buggy nightmare. If an exploit is discovered that lets you send an Unlock signal to an unverified car, that's a valid issue.

The actual article (requires a login) for the Jeep mentioned they needed the car's IP address and wirelessly reflashed the radio's firmware. Sounds like a legitimate issue.

Some stuff sounds exaggerated to scare though, like "As I tried to cope with all this, a picture of the two hackers performing these stunts appeared on the car's digital display: Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, wearing their trademark track suits." So... they changed the wallpaper on the screen? Likewise, the claim they cut the brakes and the guy was driving helplessly. There's still a physical connection between him and the brake fluid. They could stall the engine so he loses vacuum assist, but they can't completely prevent braking.


Ultimately, that was back in 2015 when adding hotspots and connectivity to cars was new. I'm certainly hoping automakers are putting much more effort into isolating the connectivity from main components. Teslas are what I'd be most worried about, and even those would be client-side exploits -- backdoors onto your phone to silently mess with the app.
 

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L8apex

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There's so many whitehats working on this that this is of 0 concern to me.
 

Jdc

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It really depends on how much they tie the system into the controls of the car. Even then, most of these hacks require info that can only be gathered by connecting to the car directly or somehow gathering hard to find info. I'm not really concerned
 

chownd

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I've played with auto hacking on the side. You* have nothing to worry about.

*Making the assumption that no one here is a high value target of a foreign adversary. If so you probably still have nothing to worry about with your car being remotely hacked.
 

Laminar

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The actual article (requires a login) for the Jeep mentioned they needed the car's IP address and wirelessly reflashed the radio's firmware. Sounds like a legitimate issue.
Yeah, I started at Wired but didn't want to link an article that people couldn't read.

There's still a physical connection between him and the brake fluid.
Not quite, because the fluid has to go through the ABS system, which can be fooled to believe that the tires are locking up and it can release brake pressure, rendering the driver helpless.
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